Happy (slightly belated) Valentine’s Day, Sparkler fans! Here at Sparkler, we think Valentine’s Day lasts all month–just the good parts where you love everyone and eat lots of candy, though!
We’ve got a great issue for you this month, starting from the cover, featuring art from a special side-story spin-off game from last year’s Out of Sync. It’s a little Valentine’s treat for all our Sparkler members, courtesy of our fabulous friends at Paper Star Studios. The Sparkler staff includes many gamers of all stripes, but we’ve got a particular soft spot for visual novels, and were thrilled to get to share Out of Sync: Crescendo with all of you! Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
Also in this issue, magical battle breaks out and secrets start to be revealed in Magical How?, a successful coffee date triggers some relationship progress (and lots of feels) in Firebird, Kelly and Grey deal with their friendship struggles in Sunshine Boy, and things get even more mysterious in Heart of Gold. If we’ve done our jobs right, there’s lots of good stuff to keep your hearts racing all month!
And to top it off, if you hadn’t heard, we’ve started a new trial program, “Sparkler Ships,” which will send you a monthly box of books, treats and Sparkler goodies to subscribers! This month our featured book is the delightful Mahou Josei Chimaka, a magical-girl-grown-up romance from team Kaiju, creators of Ring of Saturn, Inhabitant of Another Planet, and now the ongoing Novae. If you like getting fun stuff in the mail every month, sign up today!
Speaking of Kaiju, they joined us for our podcast this month along with Tacto, the creator of Firebird, to talk about how to plan comics! If you’re a creator yourself, aspiring, already putting pencil to paper, or just a curious fan, this is definitely one you don’t want to miss.
XOXO,
The Sparkler team